The towers stand 30 feet tall and stretch the length of a football field. They are lined with countless books and documents that span the generations. These documents are housed in two identical rooms in the University Archives at 2700 Kenny Rd.

The University Archives are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year. The archives were started in 1965 by retired journalist James Pollard.

Pollard wanted to organize all of Ohio State’s history and put it in one location, said Raimund Goerler, university archivist.

“(Pollard) was quite concerned that something be done,” he said. “He had the idea that records needed to be pulled together. We (now) celebrate the founding of the archives from the arrival of the first professional archivist.”

Pollard started organizing the materials in the Main Library but over the years they would pass through other buildings such as Hitchcock Hall, Brown Hall and Converse Hall, eventually ending up at the Library Book Depository on Kenny Road.

Along with housing documents, the archives also hold around 2 million photos and rare memorabilia including Jesse Owens’ four gold medals which he won at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

“We don’t have a very big budget so most of these items are donated,” said Tamar Chute, an archivist.

The medals are in a safe and are accompanied by other priceless memorabilia, such as a letter from Amelia Earhart and a letter to Woody Hayes from Bob Hope.

The archives have two research rooms for the public to use and see their fair share of citizens coming in to do research, Goerler said.

“We certainly have gotten some strange requests,” he said. “One of my favorites is a former student who came back to the archives to look (for) some woman he dated in the 1930s. He went through the yearbooks and found the picture of the woman and the rest is your imagination.”

Despite having millions of documents, it is relatively easy to find what one is looking for, Chute said.

“There’s a system and you have to make sure you keep track of the system or you’ll never find anything,” she said. “Once you know what you’re looking for it’s pretty easy to find it.”

Along with hard copies of photos and documents the archives also have aged audio recordings.

“In our oral history program we interview retired faculty staff and administrators to try and capture what their experience at the university has been,” Goerler said. “(For example) we interviewed the granddaughter of William Oxley Thompson. We interviewed her both for her recollections of her grandfather and her days of a student.”

The archives are starting to digitize some of their documents, Goerler said.

“You’re looking at millions of pages, so digitization will be selective,” he said.